How bad is the mortgage foreclosure and delinquency problem here? Bad, but not as bad as the rest of the country, according to a report released Thursday by the Mortgage Bankers Association.

In the West North Central area — Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, and the Dakotas — 6.7% of all mortgages were past due in the last quarter of 2008, that’s the lowest of all the geographical regions. Six percent of mortgages in Minnesota were past due. Just 3 percent of mortgages here were in foreclosure.

Nationally, almost 8 percent of mortgages were past due.

But the situation gets much worse for subprime mortgages — the mortgages given primarily to people with low credit ratings. Twenty percent of those mortgages in Minnesota were past due in the 4th quarter; 15 percent were in foreclosure.

About the blogger

Bob Collins has been with Minnesota Public Radio since 1992, emigrating to Minnesota from Massachusetts where he was VP of programming for Berkshire Broadcasting Co. He was an editor at the RKO Radio Network in New York, and WHDH Radio in Boston. He is the founder of the MPR News’ website. He is a private pilot and flies an airplane he built.